Chapter 3: The Forum's Verdict
The blue light of the laptop screen carved harsh lines across Mac’s face in the darkness of his bedroom. The forum thread glared back at him, a scroll of brutal, hilarious, terrifying honesty.
User_BeefCake_27: Dude, you’re both gay as hell.
Swole_Prophet: That’s the gayest thing I’ve ever read, and I love it.
Gains_Goblin: If you two wanna go further and try anal, the one taking the cock needs to clean his hole first. Use an enema or a douche. You’re welcome.
Mac’s finger hovered over the trackpad. He’d read the last line a dozen times. The clinical phrasing, “clean his hole,” juxtaposed with the raw, grunting memory of the afternoon—Brick’s hand on him, the sticky heat between them, the quiet aftermath of holding and being held—it created a cognitive short-circuit in his brain. A part of him, the wrestler, the firefighter, wanted to rage at the screen. It’s not gay, it’s peak physique optimization! But the protest died before it formed. It sounded stupid, even to him. Especially to him.
He slowly closed the laptop lid, plunging the room into near darkness. The red LED of his alarm clock cast a bloody gleam on the scattered weights on the floor. He could still smell Brick on his skin, a faint echo of coconut oil and salt beneath his own shower gel. He lay back on his bed, the sheets cool against his bare back. His mind replayed not just the jerk-off, but the cuddle. The solid, overwhelming warmth of Brick, the way his own head had fit perfectly against that massive chest. The safety of it. The rightness.
“Fuck,” he whispered to the ceiling.
It wasn’t a denial. It was an admission, heavy and final as a dropped weight. The forum bros were right. This wasn't a bro thing. This was a Brick thing. A desperate, years-long Brick thing disguised as spotting partners and protein shakes.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand. He snatched it up, his heart doing a clumsy somersault.
A text from Brick. Just a single emoji: 💪
A laugh burst out of Mac, rusty and relieved. He typed back, his thumbs clumsy. Still feeling it in my glutes. You?
The reply was instant. Hamstrings are torched. Can barely walk. Might need a spot to the bathroom tomorrow.
Anytime, Mac sent back. The word carried the weight of the universe.
He put the phone down, but the screen’s ghost image seemed burned into his vision: clean his hole. It was practical advice. It was, in its own grotesque way, a form of preparation. Like checking your gear before a fire. Like taping your wrists before a heavy lift. If you were going to do a thing, you did it right. You minimized risk. You… prepared.
The thought sent a jolt straight to his cock, which was already half-hard thinking about Brick’s text. He let his hand drift down his stomach, under the waistband of his boxer briefs. This time, there was no pretext. No logbook. No symmetry check. He wrapped his fingers around himself, his eyes closed, and he thought very deliberately about Brick. Not just Brick’s body, but Brick’s dopey, generous grin. His voice, saying “Always will.”
He jerked off quickly, fiercely, his breath coming in sharp gasps. When he came, it was with a choked-off groan into his pillow, the image behind his eyelids not of some porn clip, but of Brick’s blue eyes, wide and trusting, looking up at him from the couch.
After, wiping his hand on his sheets with a habit born of lifelong bachelorhood, he felt strangely calm. The static was gone. Replaced by a single, pointed question. A mission parameter.
He rolled over, grabbed his phone again, and opened a browser. He typed in three words, his face set in the same determined frown he used when studying a building’s schematic.
How to douche.
The sun through his blinds felt accusatory the next morning. Mac moved through his pre-shift routine on autopilot: protein shake, egg whites, checking his gear. But the knowledge sat in his gut, a secret compact. He’d read articles, watched a startlingly clinical video. He’d absorbed the information like he was studying a new piece of fire apparatus. It was just a procedure. A prep.
He met Brick at their usual gym, the high-end one where Brick worked. Seeing him behind the front desk, laughing with a client, sent a fresh wave of nerves through Mac. Brick looked up, caught his eye, and that sunbeam grin broke across his face. Nothing had changed. Everything had changed.
Their workout was intense, a silent conversation of loaded plates and grunted encouragement. During squats, Mac’s spot was hands-on, his palms firm on Brick’s hips, his chest close to Brick’s sweating back. The proximity was electric now, acknowledged. When Brick re-racked the bar after a brutal set, he turned, chest heaving.
“You’re quiet today, Harrington.”
“Just focused,” Mac grunted, tossing him a towel. “Your depth was shaky on that last rep.”
“Bullshit,” Brick laughed, swiping the towel over his face. “You were just staring at my ass like it’s your job.”
The old joke. It hung between them, naked and true. Mac didn’t look away. “Maybe it is.”
Brick’s smile softened, just for a second. He leaned in, lowering his voice so only Mac could hear over the gym’s din. “My place after? I got that new pre-workout sample. We could… test it.”
It was the same invitation. But the subtext now had a texture, a density you could feel.
“Yeah,” Mac said, his throat tight. “Gotta run by the store after my shift, though. Need some… stuff.”
“Stuff?” Brick raised a blond eyebrow.
“Yeah. You know. Stuff.” Mac felt his ears grow hot. He was a terrible liar. “Detergent. Shit like that.”
Brick’s gaze was knowing, gentle. He clapped a massive hand on Mac’s shoulder, the impact solid and grounding. “Get your stuff, then. I’ll be there.”
Mac’s shift at the firehouse was a blur of routine checks and stale coffee. His mind was elsewhere, running through a checklist. Finally, off-duty, he stood in the brightly lit, sterile aisle of a pharmacy, feeling more exposed than he ever had in a burning building. He grabbed the box quickly, hiding it under a bag of cotton balls and a new toothbrush. His heart hammered against his ribs as he paid, avoiding the cashier’s eyes.
He drove to Brick’s apartment, the box on the passenger seat like a silent passenger. He parked, but didn’t get out immediately. He sat there, gripping the steering wheel. He thought of the forum comments. Gay as hell. He thought of Brick’s arms around him. He thought of the procedure, the prep.
It wasn’t about cleaning a hole. It was about being ready. For whatever happened next. For the logical, terrifying, beautiful next step of a thing they’d already started.
He walked into his own apartment, the pharmacy bag crinkling in his fist. The bathroom mirror showed a man preparing for a different kind of mission. His hands were steady as he read the instructions, his firefighter’s discipline taking over. The process was clinical, a little absurd, but he performed it with focused efficiency. When it was done, he felt a profound, vulnerable cleanliness. An offering. A readiness.
He showered again, scrubbing the smell of smoke and antiseptic from his skin. He dressed in simple grey sweatpants and a tight black tee, his heart a persistent drum against his ribs. The drive to Brick’s apartment was a tunnel of streetlights and static.
Brick answered the door already grinning, holding out a blender bottle sloshing with neon blue liquid. “The new pre. Tastes like radioactive berries.”
Mac stared at the drink. The old ritual. The bro-code handoff. It felt like a door back into the simplicity of before, and he knew, with absolute clarity, he couldn’t walk through it. He wasn’t here for a supplement review.
“Nah,” Mac said, his voice rougher than he intended. He stepped inside, closing the door behind him. The familiar space smelled like Brick’s cologne and whey protein. “Not thirsty.”
Brick’s grin faltered. He lowered the bottle, the plastic clicking softly against the countertop. “Okay,” he said, drawing the word out. “You good, man? You seem… weird.”
“I’m good.” Mac’s eyes scanned the living room, landing on the same couch, the same folded gym mat. The memory was a physical presence. He could almost see the ghost of their dried cum on the floor. “I just don’t want the pre.”
“What do you want?” Brick asked, his voice softer. He took a half-step closer. The dopey grin was gone, replaced by a look of cautious, open curiosity.
Mac’s throat worked. All the prepared speeches from the drive over evaporated. He was just a guy standing in his best friend’s apartment, knowing too much and not enough. “You know what I want,” he finally said, the words scraping out. “Same thing you want.”
Brick’s gaze dropped to Mac’s mouth, then back to his eyes. A slow, deep blush spread up his thick neck. “The symmetry check?”
“No.” Mac shook his head, a short, decisive movement. “Not that. Something else.”
“Like what?” Brick whispered. He was close enough now that Mac could feel his body heat.
Mac’s hand came up, not with a firefighter’s certainty, but with a trembling hesitation. He placed his palm flat on the center of Brick’s tank top, over the solid, pounding rhythm of his heart. The cotton was soft, the muscle beneath unyielding. “Like more.”
Brick looked down at Mac’s hand. He covered it with his own, his fingers dwarfing Mac’s. “More,” he repeated, as if testing the word’s weight.
Then he leaned down and kissed him.
It was clumsy. Their noses bumped. Brick’s lips were chapped, and he held himself too still, like he was afraid of breaking something. Mac made a soft, surprised sound against his mouth and kissed back, angling his head, guiding him. It was a catalyst. Brick’s immense arms came around him, pulling him flush against that barrel chest, and the kiss deepened from a question into a desperate, hungry answer.
They stumbled backward, a fused, gasping unit, until Brick’s calves hit the edge of the couch. They broke apart, breathing hard. Brick’s eyes were wide, blue and stunned. “Holy shit,” he breathed.
“Yeah,” Mac agreed, his own heart trying to beat its way out of his ribs. He grabbed the hem of Brick’s tank and pulled it up. “Off.”
Brick complied, raising his arms like a obedient giant, the fabric catching briefly on his blond head before it was discarded. Mac yanked his own shirt off, their bare chests colliding again. The feeling of skin on skin, without the slick barrier of oil or sweat, was radically new. It was just heat and texture and the frantic proof of life.
They knelt on the gym mat, kissing again, hands roaming over backs and shoulders and the hard planes of stomachs. Mac’s fingers hooked in the waistband of Brick’s shorts. Brick did the same to him. They paused, foreheads touching, a silent mutual question hanging in the air.
Together, they pushed the fabric down. Together, they kicked it off. They were naked. The reality of it was vast and silent for a long moment. They weren’t measuring. They weren’t checking. They were just looking.
Brick reached out, his touch gentle now, and traced a vein that ran down the length of Mac’s bicep. “You’re so cut, man.”
“You’re a monster,” Mac said, his own hand settling on Brick’s thick thigh, feeling the dense cable of muscle there. His cock, already hard, brushed against Brick’s. The contact was electric, a jolt that made them both shudder.
Brick glanced over at the dark television screen. “We could… put something on. Like before.”
Mac followed his gaze. The memory of the porn, their alibi, flickered in his mind. He thought of the forum, of the word ‘anal’, of the clinical preparation he’d performed in his bathroom. A strange, naive boldness filled him.
“Yeah,” Mac said, his voice low. He captured Brick’s jaw, turning his face back to meet his eyes. “But not to watch.”
Brick’s brow furrowed in adorable confusion. “Then what?”
“To do,” Mac said simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Like they do on there. The stuff we skip past.” He leaned in, his lips brushing the shell of Brick’s ear. “I wanna try that. With you.”
Brick went utterly still. Mac could feel the frantic rabbit-pulse in his neck under his lips. “For real?” Brick whispered, the words full of awe and a hint of fear. “Like… taking it?”
“Or giving it,” Mac murmured back, his own naivety matching Brick’s. The mechanics were a hazy concept, but the desire was a clean, sharp line. “I don’t know. We just… figure it out. Together.”
He felt Brick swallow hard. Then, Brick nodded, a slow, decisive dip of his chin. “Okay.” He said it like a vow, like agreeing to a new max lift. “Let’s figure it out.”